QSR Interview | By Sherri Daye
Scott

Valerie Daniels-Carter, president
and CEO of one of the nation’s largest quick-serve
holding companies, offers her views on where the
industry is and where it might be headed.

This
is a shortened version of an interview that appears
in the June 2006 issue of QSR.
To get the full QSR interview
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Valerie Daniels-Carter started
her career in quick-service with one Burger King
unit in 1984. Twenty-two years later, she has parlayed
that store and lessons learned from a previous
life as a bank executive into V&J Holdings,
a Milwaukee-based holding company with assets that
include 36 Burger King and 70 Pizza Hut stores,
in addition to a real estate and investment arm.
Combined, her two quick-service brands brought
in $85 million in sales last year for subsidiary
V&J Foods.

As a veteran franchisee and one of the industry’s
most successful operators, V&J Holdings CEO
and President Carter is able to offer a unique
perspective on quick-service and where the segment’s
future might lie.

What drew you to the quick-service
industry?

I was in banking and finance.
I worked for First Wisconsin National Bank, now
U.S. Bank. I’ve had an entrepreneurial-type
spirit ever since I was a child. I had the opportunity
to look into a program that in 1982 was considered
to be somewhat cutting edge.

There was a lack of diversity within the Burger
King system. And Burger King created a program
to attract minority owners.

How did you learn about the program?

The initiative was publicized
through the black media. It was in Black Enterprise
and, I believe, Ebony. I contacted Burger King
in concert with Operation PUSH, the Rainbow/PUSH
Coalition. They had an initiative called The Covenant.
The goal was to try to bring parity within the
fast-food industry based on demographics and populations
and consumer consumption. This covenant was specifically
with Burger King. And because Burger King had such
a high penetration of African-Americans as consumers,
it really was a win-win for both the Rainbow/PUSH
Coalition and Burger King Corporation.

How did you become involved with
the Pizza Hut brand?

I became a Pizza Hut franchisee
in 1997. They were divesting some of their company
markets, and they were looking for operators who
had the capacity to operate larger fields. They
approached us. We looked at the Upstate New York
market and agreed to join with them. At the time,
we picked up 61 units.

Have your standards made it difficult
to find qualified managerial candidates?

I’ve found that it is
not just about the pool of qualified applicants;
it’s what the qualified applications are
looking for from an employer. It is a mutual,
kind of reciprocal, relationship. We have a responsibility
to the employee, and the employee has a responsibility
to the organization.

It really has a lot to do with how you’re
treated. You don’t win 100 percent, but my
basic philosophy is if you treat individuals the
way you want to be treated—with the same
level of respect and the same level of professionalism—they’ll,
in turn, sell the company for us. Many who come
to our company come by referral from individuals
currently working for the company.

We’ve experienced labor shortages like everyone
else but not to the degree that others have. I
think that has a lot to with the relationship we
have with employees.

Is Burger King going public a
positive or negative thing for V&J?

We expected at some point
there would be an initial public offering, so it
did not come as a surprise for us. We view the
IPO from this perspective: To the degree that it
can enhance and build the value of the organization
and have a positive impact within the communities
that V&J serves, we support it.

There will clearly be some changes to the structure
of Burger King as we know it today. Hopefully,
it will be for the betterment of the organization.

Probably the biggest change is
the level of competition. There has always been
healthy competitive positioning for second or third,
but the regional players have now posed a different
threat to some of the national brands.”

What kind of changes are you anticipating?

Anytime a company goes from
being privately held to publicly held there are
changes in reporting. There will be certain administrative
mandates that currently don’t exist placed
on the organization. To the degree of what all
of those changes will be we haven’t defined,
and we don’t know. But we know there will
be some.

From your perspective, what caused
the rift between Burger King and the NFABK last
summer?

As long as you have differing
of opinions, you are going to have, at some point
in a relationship, individuals who don’t
see things eye to eye. Burger King is a resilient
brand. The fact it’s had 11 CEOs in the last
15 years, or something like that…The statistics
are not in their favor as they relate to stable
management. But the brand has been able to survive.
The brand has been able to remain a successful
fast-food giant in America and worldwide. That
speaks volumes.

You’re always going to have individuals who
have points of view. Sometimes they match, and
sometimes they don’t. What happened last
year was that there were individuals who had differences
of opinion. They can work through those issues.
They’ve done it historically, and I think
they’ll be able to do it moving forward.